Revenge of Darkness II : A Sheikan Warrior
by Hikara
Summary: The dark prince has just chased the young princess out of the castle...


Revenge of Darkness II The Sheikan Warrior  
  
It was a dark and cold night in the dessert, but she had to carry on. Her white horse gallopped progressively slower and eventually had to stop. They had been heading for the forest but the old, tired horse could not have travelled far enough, which ever way they had headed, to escape the darkness that was to come. In the distance she could hear him, his horse's armour, clanking as he travelled slowly towards the dessert. They had escaped him, for now at least.  
  
"Huh?" the Princess murmered, confused, as she woke from under the blanket her guardian had put over her to keep her warm. "Where are we?"  
  
"Shh..." the mysterious warrior whispered, "I can't stay with-"  
  
"Where-" the princess interrupted  
  
"Just be quiet and listen," the tired Sheikah woman snapped "I can't stay here, I have to follow him, try and stop him now whilst it's not too bad. He's headed to the dessert in the west, his home land, home of the Gerudos. I fear that he shall bring his followers to Hyrule Castle and destroy it. I must follow him and kill him. I shall leave you this horse and you must ride to the lands of Hendo, far south of here. There you shall be safe. Return only when you know it is safe and... well... be careful". Impa ran off into the night, the Sheikahntik Blades which she carried on her back in both hands.  
  
"Goodbye!" Zelda cried into the distance but Impa could not hear and she rode, not off south as she had promised, but east, to Menso Bitané, land of the Sheikah.  
  
The young princess had never left Hyrule before, she had grown up in the peaceful lands and had so rarely ventured out of the security of the castle gardens. Although she had been gone less than a week she missed the sweet aroma of the Hylian Rose, the red and pink flowers which populated the serene gardens. It does not do good to dwell on thoughts and memories of the past she thought to herself as the horse struggled up the steep cliff of Zanta.  
  
To her left, and far below, ran the Zora's River and only a few miles to her right she could see the Kokiri Forest. The view from here was spectacular as the sun rose above the Gerusion Palaces where her guardian had left to only that last night. Zelda now, but not for the first time, wondered where Impa was at that point and why she had chased him. She knew that Impa would be angry if she knew where Zelda was headed but she also knew that Impa alone could not stop the Gerudos and that she would need help from some people, from some where. The Hylian army, once strong and invincible, had weakenned, as they slowly had less use for it. The few guards that still remained were trained in the deadly arts of Hinto Kha but they could never match up to the colossal power of the Gerudos. The warriors of Mento Bité, on the other hand, were strong and skilled. They could kill people without leaving a mark, and in mass. This is why Zelda had decided to go there, to gather an army and stop the Gerudos from turning the land into a dark world of evil.  
  
The dark horse had gallopped far ahead of the Sheikan Warrior but she would not give up hope of finding and stopping him. Impa's parents had been to this place before, where they had been killed by a young Gerusian princess named Layla. She knew how to get into and out of the fortress without being seen nor caught. She had to climb up the waterfall, swim upstream to the source of the Geru River. One Gerudo guard stayed there all the time, this was the only problem with her plan but she had passed her before and, if anything, she was a help to the plan in one way, possibly more than she was a problem.  
  
She would sneak up behind her, kill her and swap clothes and weapons so that she could get into the fortress unrecognised to be herself. Impa then intended to walk into the main fortress area, heavily guarded by Gerusian warriors, and work her way through the flame-lit passageways of the underground fortress. At the very end of one single passage she knew there was a dark chamber where Nabooru, Queen of Gerudos, stayed and trained for all hours of the day.  
  
  
  
Impa slowly swam up the river and, after the guard quite clearly noticed her, jumped up with a kick and used all of her strength to knock the guard in the water. She would have done this fairly succesfully if it weren't for Black Knight, the guards horse. At a point in the fight when Impa was standing in the water the guard called the horse over and he kicked the Sheikah in the head so that she fell in the water and drowned. The plan quite clearly hadn't worked but before this tragic end, Impa had not been the only one trying to infiltrate Gerusian property. A 14 year old boy had followed Impa when she had left the castle with the princess a few days ago. This boy's past was unknown to anyone. From the age of 3 he had been known only as 'Dark' and had somehow aquired the amazing gift to make anything he touched become invisible. This explained well how he had hidden his house in a tree in the princesses gardens. This boy, as far as he (or anyone else for that matter) knew, came from the Kokiri Forests and had left to follow a boy younger than himself who had been acting suspiciously for quite some time. From what Dark had overheard, Link (which was the boys name) had left to meet Prince Zenda in Hydu Cattle. Dark was intregued by this so followed him secretly via the Lost Woods and trapsed after him until Link met the 'Prince Zenda' - who actually was 'Princess Zelda'. Dark witnessed this meeting from his newly found home in a tree and over-heard them speaking of an Ocarina which changed the time (or something like that, he had heard from a distance) and Tired Forks. He decided that the Ocarina would be a valuable 'gift' for him from the princess and decided to follow her until she left it somewhere ready for him to "borrow" it. After all, he thought, she wants me to have it and I will give it to him.  
  
Impa slowly swam up the river and, after the guard quite clearly noticed her, jumped up with a kick and used all of her strength to knock the guard in the water. She would have done this fairly succesfully if it weren't for Black Knight, the guards horse. At a point in the fight when Impa was standing in the water the guard called the horse over and he kicked the Sheikah in the head so that she fell in the water and drowned. The plan quite clearly hadn't worked but before this tragic end, Impa had not been the only one trying to infiltrate Gerusian property. A 14 year old boy had followed Impa when she had left the castle with the princess a few days ago. This boy's past was unknown to anyone. From the age of 3 he had been known only as 'Dark' and had somehow aquired the amazing gift to make anything he touched become invisible. This explained well how he had hidden his house in a tree in the princesses gardens. This boy, as far as he (or anyone else for that matter) knew, came from the Kokiri Forests and had left to follow a boy younger than himself who had been acting suspiciously for quite some time. From what Dark had overheard, Link (which was the boys name) had left to meet Prince Zenda in Hydu Cattle. Dark was intregued by this so followed him secretly via the Lost Woods and trapsed after him until Link met the 'Prince Zenda' - who actually was 'Princess Zelda'. Dark witnessed this meeting from his newly found home in a tree and over-heard them speaking of an Ocarina which changed the time (or something like that, he had heard from a distance) and Tired Forks. He decided that the Ocarina would be a valuable 'gift' for him from the princess and decided to follow her until she left it somewhere ready for him to "borrow" it. After all, he thought, she wants me to have it and I will give it to him.  
  
Dark had been one of Link and Saria's closest friends. That was, until he spied on them. He had turned himself invisible along with a tree on which he had stood. He wanted to hear their conversation about some sort of magical tune, the same tune that the spirits of the Lost Woods sung over and over from dawn to dusk and only stopped when the darkness had fallen. Suddenly he lost his footing and fell from the tree, hitting the ground and becoming visible once more. It was at this point that his friends rejected him. It was at this point that he knew, no-one would care that should he leave the forest he would die and it was at this point that he would follow Link until his destined meeting with Zelda.  
  
Dark had just climbed up the waterfall when he saw ahead of him some sort of dark shape in the water. If he had not been shrouded by the darkness of the night then he was now hidden from the view of all as he turned invisible. He stood by the water's edge and waited for the thing to pass him. Suddenly, as it got nearer he realised that it was not just a shape but a body, the body of his stalkee, Impa. As the Wolfos of the night howled a new thought replaced this one of shock and terror: what if Zelda had given the magical, time changing ocarina to her guardian, the one person who would not give it to anyone, even at an expense as large as her life. He reached out his invisible arm and grabbed her by the arm. Dark pulled her out of the water and searched her blood-ridden, water-drenched clothes for this blue ocarina that he had seen from a distance so many times. It was no-where to be found. His mind was racing through possibilities of places that the ocarina may be but he did not find even a clue until mid-morning when he saw that her skin-tight suit had a tiny rip where her stomach was. The kind of rip that a sharp part, possible the corner of a triangle, of an ocarina could make. Now he understood that Zelda had disposed of it. But he had followed them out of the castle on his own horse and had seen no sign of the princess throwing it. no. he thought I did see...., but... why would she.... to him?  
  
Dark had, for the first time since he left the palace, realised where he was. This was Gerudo Valley, nearby was the Dessert Collosus. He had heard of the Silver and Golden Gauntlets which lie there, waiting to be 'borrowed' and he decided that Link would be easy to find but to come back to Gerudo Valley would not. The Gerudos bred a special type of horse. One that would be able to see anything and he knew that they could even see him. It would be the Gerusian Horses that would stop him, not the Gerudo's themselves but he would still try to make it through the haunted wastelands to the Desert Collosus. Before he had realised what was happening he heard a horse walking towards him. The horse was a light grey which was strange of Gerusian Horses but still, he ought to be suspicious. Slowly, as the horse drew nearer, he crawled backwards along the sandy ground and before realising he lost his footing, once again, and dropped of the edge of the cliff which the waterfall went down. However, he did not fall. He lost his invisibility but this clearly didn't matter to the horse. He had pocketed something which he had found in Impa's hand and now used it to grip to the edge of the cliff. It was a Cantos Griphook, made by the warriors who once lived in the Death Mountain Range: the Canti. Dark stabbed into the wall and hung, until he was sure that the horse had gone. Once again he climbed up the cliff and became invisible. He then walked silently up the mountains at the waters edge. At a point when the river was much shallower and much thinner he crossed it and headed downhill towards the Gerudo's Fortress. 


End file.
